How did the England we know today come into being? Discover the battles and power struggles that helped to create it. The kingdom of England – with roughly the same borders as exists today – originated in the 10th century. It was created when the West Saxon kings extended their power over southern Britain. The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the 6th century BC, and Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his voyage of discovery to the island around 325 BC.
Having emerged from the dialects and vocabulary of Germanic peoples—Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—who settled in Britain in the 5th century CE, English today is a constantly changing language that has been influenced by a plethora of different cultures and languages, such as Latin, French, Dutch, and Afrikaans.
The kingdom of England – with roughly the same borders as exist today – originated in the 10th century. It was created when the West Saxon kings extended their power over southern Britain.
English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian languages brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands.
The first people to be called "English" were the Anglo-Saxons, a group of closely related Germanic tribes that began migrating to eastern and southern Great Britain, from southern Denmark and northern Germany, in the 5th century AD, after the Romans had withdrawn from Britain.
The original Old English language was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an
The first king of all of England was Athelstan (895-939 AD) of the House of Wessex, grandson of Alfred the Great and 30th great-granduncle to Queen Elizabeth II. The Anglo-Saxon king defeated the last of the Viking invaders and consolidated Britain, ruling from 925-939 AD
William The Conqueror Defeats Harold At The Battle of Hastings - 1066. Arguably the most famous date in English history, most people can link the year of 1066 with the Battle of Hastings.